sin is always greater than the suffering. The just God is also the God of love. His justice paYes the way for His mercy. The triumph of Israel is to be tm·ned to the account of the human race, since the establishment of the sons of Abrah11m in the la,nd of promise is a necessary condition and antecedent of the univers11l salv11tion. "re do not for a moment deny that an awful mystery rests upon these dark records of the Old Testament. It is impossible to think without shuddering of these myriads of lnunan beings, swept away in a deluge of blood. But surely we may belie,e that eYen in this there was some hidden secret of love Divine, and may cling with the early Church to the "larger hope,'' that redemption may have come to them in tha.t mysterious abode of spirits in prison to which Jesus Christ went to preach (1 Peter iii. 17). We do not see why the victims of the first deluge should have been the only ones thus prirueged. Alike in public 11nd private misfortunes, lei us ernr recognise the justice of the Holy God. Let us bow beneath His mighty hand, remembering that it is at. the same time the hand of our Father, and that "all things work together for good to them that love Hi.m."-E. DE P.
Yers. 21, 22.-The destruction of the giants. These giants had been the terror of Israel. In the evil report of the unfaithful spies they are mentioned last in the ascending scale of difficulties which seemed to make the conquest of the land an impossibility. The dread of their prowess had provoked the mutiny in the wilder- ness which led to the forty years of homeless journeying. But here we have the account of their destruction ; the brevity of the account itself suggesting what everything subsequently stated confirms, that the most dreaded was not the most arduous part of their task, but somehow a part wll.ich was done like all the rest, without hitch or strain. There is much here that is very suggestive. I. THERE A:lE GIANTS THAT WE HAVE TO FIGHT. The spies bad made a true report. Their report erred not in the measurement of the difficulty, but in the estimate of the nation's power with God's help to overcome it. It was true enough that scattered over the land were these tribes or families of great stature-A.nakim, Emim, Zamzn.mmims, Repha.i.m, as they are va.riously called._ The Israelites being probably a people of less than ordinary stature found themselves thus face to face with a most stalwart and lordly race, with a people whose strength is still evinced in those marvellous remains of "the giant cities of Bashan," which impress all who behold them. And the land cannot be theirs until these giant tribes in their mountain fastnesses are destroyed. It is with them as it is with all men-all have to fight some giants in their fight of life. Our outlook should be made hopeful by faith, not by illusion. There are giants before us whom we shall have to fight if we are faithful. Difficulties, temptations, huge griefs, loneliness of spirit, impulses of wrong, cares and anxieties, still make a great tribe of the children of Anak. We shall find them scattered all over the land-in Bashan and in Hebron, and through- out all the hill country. Wherever the conquest would be hard enough without them, there are they found to make it harder still. It is well to abjure self-deception. The way of righteousness is hard, and many a battle will try all our nerve and all our endurance. Life itself is stem and full of conflict. Be not surprised if the strain on you be terrific, if the number and force of the enemy alike distress you; there has nothing new happened to yon. All have had giants to fight with in their course through life. Israel could not possess the land until the giants were con- quered, and your apprehensions of the future are so far accurate that you will have to encounter them without doubt. Secondly observe- H. WE CANNOT HELP BEING AFRAID OF TllEM, BUT WE MUST KEEP THE FEAR WITHIN PROPER LIMITS. It is useless to forbid fear, and perhaps unwise. Useless, because so long as our nen-ous system is what it is, and the possibilities of life are so solemn and various, it is inevitable that solicitude should be awakened. It would be unwise, for the fear, kept within proper limits, is one of the most valuable of all our inetincti're emotions. The eye, by a sort of fear instinctively operative in it, 1rings down its lid over it whenever anything approaches it. And by the physical apprehensiveness of the organ itself its delicate arrangements are protected. And what is done for that organ by its nerves of peculiar sensibility is done for our lives Cii. XI. 1 -23.) THE BOOK OF JOSHUA. 201